Magical stuff.
The Highlights, because it’s Preseason.
Game Notes:
- Your TOI Leader was Nikita Zadorov, who logged 23:57 last night.
- In spite of scoring the opening goal on as easy and simple a passing play as you’re gonna get, the Bruins looked as cooked as they did on Sunday night with how miserable their effort was in the opening periods.
- MICHAEL. EYSSIMONT. IS A BOSTON. BRUIN. Absolutely phenomenal night by him; 2 goals and an assist to nearly single-handedly propel this team back into a win. Exceptional stuff, well done.
- An underrated part of this was of course the clutch work of one Marat Khusnutdinov, who got the game tying goal, and then sent the softest little pass through the neutral zone to Nikita Zadorov to win the game. It was comical how much open space the Rangers left for him to send that pass so silkily and so harmlessly. Also a major net-positive in on-ice impact, which I would love to see more of from him!
- Simple passing plays to the front of the net were what killed the Rangers just about all night, and it’s kind of wild that they didn’t just hammer that over and over again, because Manhattan’s blue line didn’t seem terribly interested in actually removing too many Bruins from the slot. Can’t imagine that’ll carry over into the regular season, but it’s something to keep an eye on.
- From an on-ice perspective, a lot of the Bruins didn’t do super hot; they let up a ton of shots and a lot of those shots were in quality areas. That said, the guy behind them all…wasn’t much better. There’s a non-zero chance that the Rangers insistence on switching out goalies may have bailed the B’s out, because otherwise Igor Sheshterkin was working circles around Joonas Korpisalo, who finished the night with a .892 SV%. Gonna need more from him if he really wants to be the backup of today.
Boston gets a couple of days off for training and probably making some of their first cuts, and then will hit the road to play the Flyers on Saturday. That game starts at 5pm EST.
We’ll see
you there!
